Thursday, February 14, 2008

That House GOP Walkout   [David Freddoso]

Yesterday, the Senate voted to reauthorize the FISA bill with a veto-proof majority. As Corner readers know, the president wants to sign the legislation before it expires on Saturday.

But House Democrats did not have time to pass the Senate bill, because they faced the crucial and time-sensitive matter of voting on contempt charges against White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten and former White House Counsel Harriet Miers.

This is why the walkout took place. Republicans say they were not avoiding the contempt vote so much as they were upset that the House has time for that but no time to reauthorize a bill that is widely supported on a bi-partisan basis in Congress and by the public, and which must be reauthorized before Congress leaves. "The walkout still would have happened," said one staffer. "Our message was that it’s interesting that you guys are willing to stay in town to play this useless political game, but you won’t renew the FISA bill, which has serious implications for national security."

To be fair, the walkout did allow Republicans to skip the aforementioned vote on the contempt citations. But FISA is obviously the more important issue.

The Senate FISA bill has enough support to pass the House, if it's only brought to the floor. The Democratic House leadership is playing to the left-wing base. They tried yesterday to pass a temporary extension, during which they could significantly alter the bill that passed the Senate.

If the president does not sign the bill before Saturday, then we revert to the previous FISA law. The feds will be able to continue certain ongoing terrorist monitoring activities, but they cannot initiate new ones. (It becomes easier to start up a terror cell on Saturday.)

The idea of a walkout was conjured up this morning, Boehner's office told me. Members were slightly unhappy with how cold it was outside, but they sent a powerful message when they came out onto the Capitol steps. The House hasn't had a day like this since last year, when the "stolen vote" controversy caused chaos on the floor.

Tensions were already unnecessarily high today because of an earlier scheduling snafu — a simple error, apparently in the Speaker's office. Under a bipartisan agreement, the House was not to come into session until after the Tom Lantos memorial service. But the service ran long, and the session was gavelled in anyway. The first item up for consideration was a Republican motion to adjourn. At first, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer's (D., Md.) office believed at first that this had been the Republicans' fault. Later on, that misunderstanding was cleared up and explained on the floor. Someone just messed up, no ill will intended.

Will the FISA bill be allowed to expire over the Presidents' Day work period? It's all in the hands of the House Democratic leadership right now.

02/14 04:12 PMShare